Strauss-Kahn/ Irish bartender/NYPD cops cases show how difficult he said/she said rape accusations are to prove

The New York Times is reporting that Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance will likely not prosecute Dominique Strauss-Kahn in the sexual assault charge against him for attacking Nafissatou Diallo a maid at the Sofitel in New York City.

Nobody in their right mind disputes that there was a sexual encounter with the maid but her background of lying and subsequent actions such as allegedly telling a male friend that she was going to gets lots of mullah certainly damaged her case.

It also proves why sexual assault is one of the toughest crimes to prove. If it comes down to he said/she said juries are reluctant to definitively take sides.

That is understandable , it is a jungle out there and it is hard to get a definitive narrative in many cases.

A young Irishman, Damien McGuinness from Derry, finds himself in the same situation. A bartender in midtown Manhattan he and a friend took two young women home to their apartment near Columbia University.

She claims he raped her, he says it was consensual. Police dropped charges against his friend who at first was accused of holding her down.

Who is telling the truth, who is lying? It may be both are from their own point of view as they perceived their situation so differently.

We recently had a case where two NYPD police officers clearly were up to no good when they brought home a very drunk young woman and then visited her apartment on four separate occasions. The woman was so drunk however, that the jury could not convict because her memory was judged to be impaired.

The three cases clearly show how difficult this issue is.There is no doubt that Strauss-Kahn is a pig around women, that the two cops acted against every duty they had sworn to uphold, that the Irish bartender overstepped some boundary.

But in one of those cases the jury could not convict, one is set to be dropped and the Irish case looks the shakiest of all.

When it comes to he said/she said there is simply no easy answers it seems.